Title: A Kite in the Iliad

Author: TigerTiger02

Where Can I Find a Young Impressionable Stable Boy Pt. II?

AKA: Righting the World

Disclaimer: Joss and Homer are hording the characters of these wonderful shows/books. However I own Briar and Puck, and for the fee of one Captain Jack Sparrow action figure or a chained up Orlando Bloom, you can borrow them.

A/N: So this whole thing seems to be coming along nicely. I'm very pleased with it. Which is something I can't really say about 'Detour in the Roadway', I'm so frustrated with that $#!#& that I nearly cried yesterday while attempting to write then next chapter. Oddly enough I've actually gotten quite a bit down… unfortunately I lost it. Not quite sure where it got to. So I attempted to remember what I wrote and rewrite it. I wasn't too pleased. I've been having a lot of trouble lately with focusing on polishing off 'No Rest for the Wicked' and 'Killed a Bloke for You' There's only one chapter left for each and I can't seem to focus on them. I've been dying to write some fics for Half-Blood Prince but I'm slightly apprehensive about it, seeing as I'm likely to be flogged or bludgeoned to death by rotten fruits and veggies if I don't keep trudging though the crowd favorites. I've also gotten five chapters down for a new one I'm dying to post… it's a Cowboy Bebop/Buffy crossover. I love it to pieces but apprehensiveness about posting it leaves me writing without posting. Well though I have no clue if anyone is actually reading these I still love writing them because it gets some thinks off my chest. If someone is reading this give me a response of some sort!
Though Briar knew that it was possible that her attraction to Hector was mutual she wasn't about to jump into bed with the heir to Troy's throne. No, she would be gone soon anyway, and he was destined to die. She really needed to get laid however and apparently he had already found her replacement. Not only that but she needed to forget the pain, if only for a moment. She missed her friends, missed Spike and Faith. She wanted to go home… where she could satisfy her hunger for love with the blonde vampire. Yes, she was screwing the brit but it was mutual, both had deep pain and heartache, neither one minded the other was using them. They had a deep seeded friendship, they understood each other. She missed that deeply. Which was why at this moment around midnight, she stalked to the stables and found the attractive nineteen year old that Hector had designated to stay while others fought.

"Hi." she said in a whisper, pretending to be in awe of his masculinity.

Oh he was handsome, dark blue eyes that reflected the night sky and silky slightly curly black hair. He was clean shaven, showing his elegant cheekbones and jawbone. He was taller then her, not quite Hectors height but close enough. His muscles were slender and sinewy, he wasn't bulky but he still had power. And his hands were large palmed with long slender but powerful fingers. She leaned near him and he gulped.

"Hello Athanasia." he whispered in his silky honeyed tones.

"How do you fair Bastian?" she asked in a breathy voice.

"Oh I am well." he responded. "I hope this isn't too forward but you look lovely tonight." she beamed up to him.

"No not forward at all. You look... delicious tonight as well." she said and she leaned closer letting her breast brush his arm with every breath she took. His eyes went wide.

"Would a kiss be too forward?" he asked suddenly, nearly catching her off guard. She froze for a moment, was this right? Did she really want to be doing this? No… but right now she needed to forget. And so she answered.

"Not at all." she said and he grasped her arms tightly and pressed those full, pretty lips against hers. She was soon flush against his body and his right hand cupped her cheek and his left slide down to wrap around her waist. She moaned into his mouth. This boy was a good kisser. He pulled away, and she panted staring at him.

"I want you." he whispered.

"Then take me." she said and just as he was about to a messenger had to interrupt. She forgot to smooth her dress and try to look presentable but Bastian wiped his mouth and gave her longing gaze.

"Ma'am, Prince Hector wishes to see you, in his room." she groaned angrily as the messenger strode away, having others to bother. Briar turned back to Bastian. He looked thoroughly disappointed.

"Bastian, I will come tomorrow, around this time..." she said as she gave him a hurried kiss.

"No, you won't." he said. She blinked as he shoved her away. "You want the Prince."

"No, he has someone else. I want you."

"Only because you can't have the prince."

"I don't want the prince." Bastian sighed.

"You think you don't but..." he sighed, "Please don't come tomorrow… I want you without regrets." he said sadly.

"I…" she chocked back tears, "I understand." She said though she didn't. When she was out of his sight she allowed herself to cry a little.

"Prince Hector?" She had made it to the palace without completely breaking down and was now standing in front of the first born prince's door."Come in." she opened it and strode inside.

"What do you need." he turned to her and froze. He studied her for a moment, her lips looked slightly bruised, and her hair was mussed as was her dress.

"What have you been up to?" he asked curiously, she failed miserably at detecting the hint of anger and jealousy in his voice.

"Nothing at all." she said with a fake smile even as she ached to cry inside.

"I see... I wanted… I wanted to ask you something." He said tentatively. There was a long drawn out pause and she waited for him to speak, trying desperately not to get her hopes up.

"Yes?" she prodded gently.

"Are you happy?" he asked suddenly. Yet another statement/question that caught her off guard.

"I… I…" she stuttered for a moment, trying to grasp at words to say. She searched her mind for another. "I will be." She said finally. Skeptically he studied her with a trained eye.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm-." she froze suddenly, there was an all familiar tingle running rampant up and down her spine. No… it couldn't be. She refused to believe it. Another part of her mind wondered. She hadn't felt a vampire the whole time she had been here, why now? Was it really Spike? Or just someone from the Aurelius line? There was a stabbing pain all of a sudden, as if her body wanted her to feel something else. Her eyes widened as she felt something entirely different. Faith was here, Briar could always tell when Faith was around because the whole slayer connection. She jerked away from the concerned Hector whose voice had become muffled and concerned.

"I- I have to go." She yelped out as another sharp stab to the stomach came. She turned away from him and ran.

She could feel the pull of them, their souls, or something to that affect. It was like a string attached her to the two people. The Slayer and the Slayee. Her heart thudded faster in her chest as she pushed her body to the limit and beyond. She knew exactly where to go, as if an internal mall-like map had been set in her body without her knowledge. Her breath wheezed from her in short gasps. She stumbled suddenly, a stitch in her side giving her a shock of pain. Gasping she wrapped an arm around her side and continued to run. Oxygen… she wasn't getting enough. She stumbled over a tree root and fell to the ground, gasping harshly in pain as her vision blackened. She took in big gulps of air as she staggered up. Rubbing her side ruefully she took off again, staggering more or less. She stumbled through the bushes. The throbbing pull became sharper, the tingles became shudders. She was nearly there. She gave a gasping cry as she stumbled into a clearing and immediately collapsed.
They had been sitting there for an hour when Spike's head jerked up. Three feet away from him Faith had suddenly tensed. Willow immediately absorbed this and froze, she could feel something… beyond their clearing… a mile? Less? She didn't know. Xander paused, his apple an inch away from his awaiting mouth. Shrugging he bit into it causing the three supernaturally tuned people to jump. Three pairs of eyes turned to him in varying glares. He took another bite from the apple and chewed it slowly, while meeting their gazes. Apple bits and pieces still in his mouth he lowered the "forbidden" fruit. "What?" he asked, spewing apple bits everywhere. Spike wrinkled his nose in disgust. Faith glared at him.

"That's just downright nasty." She voiced. Willow wrinkled her nose delicately.

"Ewww…" she said.

"What?" Xander insisted, spewing more apple bits, this time on Spike.

"You didn't just do what I think you did, did you Xan?" Faith asked. Xander gulped as Spike looked down at his precious coat.

"I'll kill you…" Spike said in a strangled voice. He lunged at Xander. This action was halted when none other then Briar came staggering in before collapsing.

Puck snuggled deeper into the warm body of Paris. She was happy here; even though a war loomed overhead and she didn't quite belong here she was happy. Paris mumbled something, flung an arm around her, pulled her closer, and nuzzled her neck gently. Yes, Puck could see herself not returning to her world even if she had a chance. She didn't know if she really loved Paris per say but she was in love with the idea of someone who would treat her with care and would treat her right. Someone who was in love with her, or at least loved her at least a little bit was enough for her at this point. In her short years as a Slayer she had thought she would never be happy or find love.

Even as a child she had never experienced love. She had the typical ghetto life. A father who had abandoned his coke addicted girlfriend when Puck was only four. And an unfortunate art and literature student mother who had fallen for a man in the wrong crowd; a woman who later became an alcoholic-drug addicted-prostitute who ignored her one child except to feed and cloth her. A child that turned into poor white kid living in the ghetto who had a likelihood of sometimes shunned, and she was shunned. Though there was pattern on how girls and boys turned out she was different. She was separate. She was a potential-potential. The Watchers Council, she later learned, sometimes didn't pick up on these type of girls, girls with no certain past, present, or future. The stuffy, old, Englishmen had looked upon her file and wrinkled their upturned noses, No they said, she doesn't have the potential to be a potential. She could never hack it in this place. She could never receive potential powers or move on to be the next slayer. No they declared and never looked back, shoving her file away in a basement room full of filing cabinets that had nothing 'important' in them. And luck would have it; it was one of the few rooms that survived intact after the bombing, so Giles said.

And so Puck reveled in this love. A love she had never felt before. She didn't care about consequences and such things. She wanted to feel like this forever. She was about to wake Paris up for a little nookie time when her stomach twisted painfully. She grunted and closed her eyes. What the hell was that? She wondered. She hadn't had this feeling since Cleveland. This dark oppressing feeling that made her shudder in fear and want to bury herself and hide away. A twisting worming feeling that she only got with… "Vampire…" she whispered in a reverent voice. But it was fading now and feels awfully far away. So she ignores the feelings and pushes it back in her mind. She wakes Paris up with a soft kiss.

"What's wrong?" he says in a hushed voice, "you're shaking."

"Just cold…" she tells him. He knows it's a lie but doesn't want to press her.

"Want me to hold you?"

"Yes…" she murmurs and snuggles into his wonderfully heat giving body.

Hector paced his room, an annoyed expression fixed on his face. He began to speak, to try and input some logic into the situation, not that talking to oneself was really all that logical. "What the hell was that all about? She looked… disturbed. Perhaps she has an injury? Perchance she was eager to get back to her… activities." Frustrated he pounds his fist into the writing desk. He sighs an aggravated sigh and sits down rubbing his forehead. "What am I getting into?" he asks himself. The walls have no answer.
The first thing Briar was aware of was the hard unyielding earth beneath her and the soft leather and silk surrounding her. The second was the scent of leather, smoke, and alcohol. And the third was the quiet humming of 'God Save the Queen'. She opened her eyes and grunted, taking in the blurred face of bright platinum blonde, brilliant blue eyes, and pale alabaster skin. Her vision cleared. "Spike?" she croaked out, "Is it really you?" she asked.

"It's me, pet. Scout's Honor." He adds in with a wicked grin.

"You were a Boy Scout?" a disbelieving voice asks with a chuckle. Spike turns his head to the source of a voice. Briar has a chance to study his profile before he speaks.

"No… but I ate quite a few." He says, causing varying sounds of disgusted laughter. He turns his attention back to Briar. His knuckles gently run across his cheek in a reverent gesture. "Missed you, luv." He tells her.

"I missed you too." She says. Spike leans down closer; he pauses for a second in hesitation and then presses his lips tightly against hers. Faith rolls her eyes muttering about how it wasn't fair that they still had to deal with horny teens even when they weren't around any. Willow averted her eyes and mumbled something about more fire wood. And Xander shudders in horror and runs after Willow. For a moment Briar's world seems to right itself as she lays in Spike's arms getting snogged like there was no tomorrow.

Oh I love thee my reviews let me respond in sincerity:

Katie: wow I can feel your enthusiasm… but thanks for your review no matter how forced it sounded.

sweetypie15: I think I love you, you totally rock! I updated as soon as I could… lots of out-of-state things going on. Anyway you're such an encouragement. I rarely get reviews to err… review more then once.

SiriusSpikeLover: hehe I love your penname… double meaning with Sirius's name… thank you so much for saying this is awesome, I trudge through the chapters in all honesty so I try to update as soon as I can for people like you, you wonderful person you. Sorry I'm in a really fabulous mood today. I too love Dachilles… unfortunately I couldn't figure out where to put a scene of them in this considering this is a second part. But they'll have a huge scene next chapter along with the overprotective White Hats as Spike loves to call them.